Many years ago I had the battery door latch strike on an Olympus A16 flash fail. My fix was to fashion a new strike out of 0.060" thick brass sheet, and to epoxy this piece of brass flat to the outside of the polystyrene flash body. The piece was about 1/2 by 3/8 inches, with a little ear off one corner acting as the strike. The 1/2 by 3/8 flat area was to give adequate gluing area. I used ordinary hardware store
8-hour epoxy, had no problems with outgassing or melting plastic, and the brass piece never came loose.
The problem really goes back to the problem of having the battery door be part of the battery circuit, and having the spring contacts of the batteries putting constant pressure on the plastic door latch. Plastic will fatigue, get brittle in cold weather, and isn't tolerant of even momentary abuse.
I've fixed battery doors several ways, but I tend to stay away from epoxy and cyanoacrylate glues, and of course duct tape. There is often a way to insert a steel pin or section of a paper clip into the plastic with some creative drilling.
Type "camera reliability li-ion versus nimh" into the Google search box, and then click on "I'm Feeling Lucky." Click on "Advantages of Li-Ion Batteries/Disadvantages of NiMH batteries (AA/AAA)" in the table of contents, then scroll down to "Devices with Li-Ion Batteries are Usually More Reliable." Good explanation--oh, did I mention that I wrote it?!
It's not just Nikon, other brands have similar problems, though Nikon is especially bad because it's not the door that breaks, but the camera body.
Try to buy cameras that use Li-Ion packs, rather than AA batteries, as they are more reliable.
Problem is that the AA batteries are more reliable because if I forget to bring them or if they run low, picking up another set of freshly recharged batteries or brand-new alkalines is a snap.
The camera with a lithium ion battery pack is more often a brick than it is a camera, in my humble experience - due to battery pack problems. I never buy any lithium ion camera or any other device (telephone, miniature tv, etc.,) if it exists with AA batteries.
AA batteries, in the long run, are vastly more "reliable" than any other type of battery pack (when you include the down time when you don't have a spare battery or a spare charger available).
I do the same. I only buy cameras that take AAA batteries.
And the same problem exists with laptops. Most are trashed because the batteries fail and are no longer available either at a reasonable cost or at all. I've saved a couple of discarded laptops by rebuilding the battery packs myself. But I was able to do that only with the NiCd ones. I don't even try with the Lithium ones.
Jeanette Guire wrote in news:8xWRi.11288 $ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net:
I've done something similar to fix the battery door on a portable stereo.
I might do the same for my Nikon CP-5200 Iit apparently suffers from the same plastic weakness but uses a different door style, so I cannot effectively do the paperclip thing, whic is what I'd do if I had a 4200 or other camera as depicted.
Jeanette Guire wrote in news:Ug2Si.35927$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net:
Those with such a drill press will know what a roll pin is. For the uneducated, a roll pin is simply a pin made up of a flat piece of material rolled into a cylinder, rather that a solid piece of material, usually steel.
It is a two part device that each mounts to the tripod and the tripod hole on the camera, allwing one to quicly remove or replace the camera on the tripod. some happpen to conveniently get in the way of the battery door.
Autobody filler is a plastic resin (comes as a putty with a separate tube of hardner agent; when you mix the two it starts a cemical reaction which hardens the putty) that cures hard. After it hardens, you can file/sand/grind/tool to the desired shape.
Bondo is a brand name of auto body filler. It could also have been person also.
Usenet is not one spot, and short term. A website of some sort is more permanent.
Kathy Bennett Schoendorf wrote in news:AtOSi.9047$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com:
They need charged more often, and/or you need more of them. On the plus side though, you can use the batteries in other things, and if need be, use standard alcaline AA cells, and for Li-IOon battery packs, you need to get costly OEM packs (but do typically get one with the device), or dodgy after market packs, and need the proprietary charger and/or charging cable.
FWIW, my camera (nikin CP5200) has Li-Ion, and I have a "dodgy" spare pack, and have had no problems with it at all. If I go away, I just make sure I have both packs charged up.
I think the day of NiMH cells is past. The Li ion packs are so much lighter, slimmer, and have so much more capacity (especially joules per kg) that you`d have to be a masochist to want to go back for most portable electronics. I think there are more-or-less standard sizes (eg. for cellphones) and usually if there`s a market there`s a 3rd party supplier (I have a couple spare packs for my DSLR and it will take 3 li primary cells in an emergency).
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